. Wild nature's ways . you have made afriend for life of him. Next morning the weather proved to be dulland windy, with a drizzling mist that made theloch peppered moor look black and dismal, andphotographic chances gloomy in the , remembering that the disappointmentof the morning is often only the black bag inwhich the opportunity of the afternoon is hidden,I went forth to try. The weight of the turves had driven myslender tent irons far down into the soft peatearth, but, in spite of this unavoidable reductionof space, I managed to squeeze the camera andmyself into the dank apa
. Wild nature's ways . you have made afriend for life of him. Next morning the weather proved to be dulland windy, with a drizzling mist that made theloch peppered moor look black and dismal, andphotographic chances gloomy in the , remembering that the disappointmentof the morning is often only the black bag inwhich the opportunity of the afternoon is hidden,I went forth to try. The weight of the turves had driven myslender tent irons far down into the soft peatearth, but, in spite of this unavoidable reductionof space, I managed to squeeze the camera andmyself into the dank apartment. The game-keeper placed a large sheet of turf over the 102 WILD NATURES WAYS. hole through which I had just crept^ and wenthis \\ay, Tn ten minutes the skua came back with theevident intention of dropping on to her nestright away, but catching sight of the lens peepingfrom beneath a shaggy eyebrow of heather onthe side of the artificial knowe, she sheered off, andthought the matter over maturely whilst crouching. SKUA GOING ON TO HEP? NEST. out of the wind behind a knoll thirty yards toleeward. Half an hour afterwards she tried again,but when she saw, in the slightly altered languageof the poet, The great cyclops with one eyeStaring to threaten and defy, her heart failed her, and she alighted a few yardsaway, and, like the females of many other ground-builders, when afraid to venture on their nests, BIRDS OF MOORLAND AND LOCH. 103 commenced to crouch and hustle in a make-beheve sort of way that she had eggs under hohow pretence at brooding was evidentlyvery unsatisfying, for in two minutes she gave itup, and, flying forward against the wind, pitchedhghtly on her nest, and engaged in the real thing. The darkness of the weather made it almostimpossible for me to indulge in rapid exposures,and the waving of the bent grass and heather,to say nothing of the constant head movementsfrom side to side of the bird, rendered slow onesexceedingly difficult. However, on the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, books, booksubjectnaturalhistory
